Last Updated on January 25, 2024 by Gamesver Team and JC Franco
Pictionary is a fun, engaging game for the whole family. It can be played in almost any setting with players of most ages. There’s even a variant designed specifically for younger children. If they are feeling creative, players can add their own words that they deem suitable for different age groups across various subjects.
This simple and fun game has a complex range of mental and physical skills interwoven in its gameplay, which are crucial for learning. Pictionary engages our brain in thinking in a combination of verbal and non-verbal paradigms. Non-verbal concepts usually relate to images and pictures in one’s mind, and our brains can process these thousands of times faster than words, even if these ideas and concepts are rather complex.
Besides being a rather entertaining social pastime, there are several constructive reasons to play Pictionary today. Whether you’re looking to play it yourself or to entertain your children, students, friends, or coworkers, the following list is something to keep in mind as a beneficial aspect of introducing yourself or other people to Pictionary.
These are 14 reasons to play Pictionary:
1. Icebreaker
Playing games has been demonstrated to be an effective icebreaker. Suppose you are in a social setting where people are not well familiar with each other and seem reluctant to engage one another. In that case, you might want to facilitate the ‘social thawing’ process, especially if you are the host.
Breaking out a Pictionary game will take pressure off everyone and allow them to loosen up as they focus on the game. While the game’s competitive aspect may cause some social friction, such a thing is often more welcome and pleasant in social settings than complete awkward silence.
2. Creativity
Creative games such as Pictionary have been demonstrated to stimulate the same parts of our brains for problem-solving and brainstorming. Engaging in this activity will stimulate the brain to develop some enlightening ideas, both during the activity itself and outside of it, in everyday life.
3. It’s Competitive
As mentioned above, Pictionary has a competitive spirit. While some players, especially younger children, may be deterred from games of this nature, many find them especially engaging and exciting. The competitive aspect may also be used to distribute some entertaining awards and ‘punishments’ for players and make the entire experience fun and unique.
4. Communication
Pictionary is based around effectively communicating ideas. As mentioned above, it encourages the brain to think in visual, verbal, and conceptual terms all at once. Activities like this are pretty rare and highly engaging.
Humans are problem-solving animals. The greater the challenge, the more significant dopamine is released from our brains once we solve it. Getting the answers right in Pictionary after brainstorming all these different areas can lift spirits and make for a lively social event.
Besides being highly exciting, it also nourishes our skills: It helps us solidify our understanding of words and concepts, helps us form stronger connections between the two, helps us understand the difference between effectively communicating a new idea to another person and trying to understand a new idea that’s communicated to us.
Also, playing Pictionary hones our drawing skills which are dependent on our eye-hand coordination.
5. Fun
Pictionary is fun! Every game of Pictionary eventually evolves into a big ball of laughter. While some people may be reluctant to play at first because they may be insecure in their drawing skills, they are promptly encouraged to play as they realize the game is less about being an expert artist and more about the funny chaos. Randomness and poor drawing can add to the atmosphere soon than take away from it.
6. Social Interaction
Pictionary thrives on social interaction, and it’s one of its strongest elements. It’s one of the few games that can guarantee every player, regardless of how timid or reserved they are, will get their fair share of active participation without suffering the discomfort of having to choose between being more socially bold than they naturally are and being ‘pressed’ out of the game.
7. Confidence
Pictionary bolsters an atmosphere of positive, stress-free social interaction. Some of the more socially insecure people may find this incredibly encouraging, which may help their overall confidence. Additionally, games like Pictionary that offer both a challenge and a feeling of success help people’s self-esteem and self-efficacy in general.
8. Resilience
In addition to being problem-solving animals, human beings are also very social. Both children and adults tend to feel happier, more confident, and less troubled when connected to a group.
When people (be it family or a casual group of acquaintances and friends) get together to play a game that requires input from everybody, it provides and nourishes social cohesion for that group. The feelings that naturally sprout from such feelings of ‘belonging’ and ‘participation’ provide a source of resilience for human beings.
9. It Promotes Essential Skills
Pictionary promotes all sorts of essential skills. In addition to the ones we have explored above, it also helps hone problem-solving, decision-making, impulse control (waiting your turn), following rules and directions, as well as communicating with others.
It can be a handy tool for younger yet unformed children to teach them how to handle conflict, behave when they lose, and clarify their values.
10. Academic Development
The skills, Pictionary helps develop and nourish are all essential for both everyday life and academic settings. Additionally, parents and teachers can use Pictionary as a teaching tool.
11. Vocabulary
Pictionary can be an excellent tool for teaching and learning vocabulary, especially for children. However, it is not uncommon for adults to be unfamiliar with one of the base game’s higher-ranking words.
If teachers or parents wish to use Pictionary for this purpose but fear the game’s vocabulary is either too simple or too complex for their target audience, they may simply keep the core principle of the game but add words of their own.
12. Suitable For Most Ages
Pictionary is perfectly suitable for players of most ages – almost everyone can participate. Pictionary can be an excellent way to provide a simultaneously entertaining and educational environment in academic settings, but it can also be used at social or family gatherings.
13. Pleasant Memories
Playing games like Pictionary can help families and friend groups spend fun, relaxing time that will bring their attention away from their daily lives, troubles, and chores. It creates pleasant memories that people can look back on with warm nostalgia. Such a thing helps strengthen and maintain bonds between people for a very long time.
14. Bolstering Important Skills
Each player must observe and represent a word as an image. Their hand must move a pencil over the paper to re-create the picture they hold in their mind. While one player communicates words by drawing them, others must observe the drawing and convert it into a word or phrase in their minds.
This process requires visualization, memory, manipulation of mental images, and organization of thoughts. All of these skills are crucial for reading and understanding words.
The drawing itself requires good eye-hand coordination and using one’s vision and mind to direct the body which employs visual-motor integration. It also branches off into communication, creative thinking, and original thought, all of which are highly valuable for academia and life.
Conclusion
If you are looking for a fun, interactive, socially engaging activity that is also a great learning tool for various essential skills, look no further. Pictionary can do all this and more.
Whether you’re a teacher or a parent looking for a useful but fun learning tool to engage your children or students, or simply someone looking to present a new casual activity to their friends, family, or coworkers, you will find that Pictionary checks all your boxes. It’s interactive, social, engaging, educative, and extremely fun.
This article was co-authored by our team of in-house and freelance writers, and reviewed by our editors, who enjoy sharing their knowledge about their favorite games with others!
JC Franco
JC Franco serves as a New York-based editor for Gamesver. His interest for board games centers around chess, a pursuit he began in elementary school at the age of 9. Holding a Bachelor’s degree in Business from Mercyhurst University, JC brings a blend of business acumen and creative insight to his role. Beyond his editorial endeavors, he is a certified USPTA professional, imparting his knowledge in tennis to enthusiasts across the New York City Metropolitan area.